21 Comments

It's always a good sign when a poem demands to be read aloud 'to get the beauty of it hot'. And yet it's also full of clever little touches which don't distract from the whole but add to it. Double entendres that turn out to be quite different in meaning when you follow through to the next line. Including one that is sexually ambivalent. And the skillful use of internal rhyme, including one three syllable rhyme which was positively breathtaking.

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To be honest, many of the internal rhymes were originally end rhymes, but I liked the poem better with the current format. The main idea was to try to see the war through Helen's eyes, rather than those of the male heroes. For me the central lines are:

Men must die

to be remembered. Fame, the shrillest cry,

leaves all the world dismembered.

She understands her husband's need for "honor" and "glory" but she sees the ultimate futility. So she gives and gets what she can: affection, intimacy, sex, knowing it will all end soon.

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It's amazing just how relevant and timeless and touching this poem is right now. These lines alone, regarding a great love, a great passion, that seems heightened by an awareness of the sad fate that awaits it, speak volumes about the inevitable ongoing consequences of warfare - especially for women:

Hold him, lie,

tell many pleasant tales of lips and thighs;

enthrall him with your sweetness, till the pall

and ash lie cold upon him.

A real tour-de force! Well done, Michael.

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Thanks Martin. I think "To Have Loved" demonstrates that art doesn't have to be just for the sake of art. Poets can speak for the voiceless and make readers think about things like war, injustice, intolerance, without preaching sermons.

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Yes, indeed. And when the poets get obsessed with little trivial issues and cease to speak for the mothers and children, and ordinary people, about pressing life and death issues that concern them, they seek out singer/poets, such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Gordon Lightfoot etc. who actually do speak for them, because as Dylan says, we are already up to our necks in "the hard rain" that's been falling for a long while now - especially in Ukraine and Gaza. Well done, Mike, for keeping it all so relevant and real. This is a great poem.

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Yes, and poets and songwriters have done more to change human opinions than most people realize.

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Agreed.

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...The classics live, or so the tour guide croaks

As old Laocoön writhes and chokes

On foresight and the serpent’s coils.

The winedark flood of Ocean roils.

Helen, still moist with Paris’ sweat,

Dreams old wine on her husband’s breath:

Troy’s towers and ramparts crack and fall,

Stone on stone. The dust clouds swell,

And far across the violet sea

The dead rise up in poetry...

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Bob, that is an interesting take on the classics. I like your poem, well-written as always.

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It's a piece of a slightly longer piece about walking through a courtyard at the Vatican museum, which is one of my favorite places, stirring memories which span chidhood to old age.

Periphrastic Ekphrasis

I remember Scipio’s

Sarcophagus. This brown-fringed rose

Of early summer’s not so pale

As that white stone. But his old tale

Is scarcely told where tourists walk

Through Rome’s long past and talk

Of Gucci bags and pizza crust,

And Amarone’s purple must.

The classics live, or so the tour guide croaks

As old Laocoön writhes and chokes

On foresight and the serpent’s coils.

The winedark flood of Ocean roils.

Helen, still moist with Paris’ sweat,

Dreams old wine on her husband’s breath:

Troy’s towers and ramparts crack and fall,

Stone on stone. The dust clouds swell,

And far across the violet sea

The dead rise up in poetry.

And here horned Pan and Galilee

Pipe in conjoined harmony.

Beauty, wayward bastard of time,

Lingers in gesso, stone and rhyme,

And I speak here with Scipio,

That old man who died long ago,

And listen to old Laocoön,

His tales of loves and dooms long gone.

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Very nice, thanks for sharing.

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Thanks for this link David.

New to poet me, over there now being amused and amazed (and platonically wary of the bemusement:) by the Bicameral muses.

But note those fever blisters on the lips of the BiPolar Muse that bemuses Brown and the Ehrets with its Imperialist mania that befuddles their minds to accept the Xi and Putin dictator’s depression—tyrant rhymes with aspirant.

Get free, stay free.

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Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed.

Some new big stuff coming shortly.

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Btw, on Hypertexts, does it accept new poets to publish there? I saw no link to do this. I have some poems I would like to submit. Email me if wish: Jack responsiblyfree@protonmail.com

Thanks.

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Jack, I will email you an invitation to submit to The HyperTexts. -- Michael R. Burch aka Mike to everyone

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Got it, Michael, thanks, will be in touch.

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I will look forward to hearing from you.

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It's always an honor to have my poems read by the golden-voiced David Gosselin.

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Dec 13, 2023
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I'm glad you liked my poem, especially when so many women are once again victims of war in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine and elsewhere.

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Yes, the women of these war-torn countries - that's exactly what I was thinking of when I read your poem.

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Hopefully other readers will get that as well. Over the years I have written quite a few poems from the perspectives of women and children under seige.

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